About

Salvador Dalí

Spanish, 1904 - 1989

Cybele, 1972 - 1973

Not On View

Bronze

Dimensions: 15 1/2 × 6 3/4 × 5 1/2 in. (39.4 × 17.1 × 14 cm)

Museum purchase, 2000.66

As a Surrealist, Salvador Dalí sought to express the reality of dreams and the unconscious mind. The drawer in the center of this figure’s forehead may be a metaphor for the way Freudian psychoanalysis opens the hidden areas of the subconscious. Known as the Great Mother of the Gods, Cybele, was a Neolithic and Greco-Roman nature goddess. She was praised for her ability to parent gods, humans, and animals. Dalí has presented her with a series of nodule like breasts that may reference her maternal nurturing.